“Everything is impossible until someone does it.” .... Robert Heinlein...................
I know there is outside energy involved (ambient heat) but this sounds too much like a perpetual motion machine.
Thibado’s team found that at room temperature the thermal motion of graphene does in fact induce an alternating current (AC) in a circuit, an achievement thought to be impossible.
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This is the atomic-level version of harnessing vacuum energy. Extremely cool if it’s really working.
The left DOES NOT WANT 'clean, limitless power'!!!
They want you shut down and subject to their control.
Zero Population Growth etc.
What is the Frequency?
Clean, Limitless Power ?
Democrats will be against as the price of energy would be lower and they cannot turn off the power to your home as you will have your own generator powered by the graphene.
I am thinking this could open up a whole new area of bio-medical power supply. Interesting development.
At first I too thought of “Perpetual Motion” but then realized it was more a “Sterling Engine”/heat differential at the molecular level moving electrons rather than a mechanical work. Definitely on the AMAZING level, if true I’d see a Nobel Prize for Physics potential.
Sincerely hope it is not a Pons&Fleischmann “Cold Fusion” (1989) disappointment. NOTE: I say ‘disappointment’ as I think that they were sincere in their research, at least at the beginning. MHO.
If this is true, it is the last time you will ever read about it.
The universe is awash in energy called zero point energy or dark energy or whatever that will soon be harvested.
If this is in fact converting heat into electricity, it should also have a refrigerating effect or it would violate the conservation of energy law.
If it’s Feynman against this guy, I’ll take Feynman.
Flying Cars are just around the corner!
Second, the graphene may not be producing any energy at all, but action as an energy capture device from slight variations in room temperature. Imagine on a large scale hooking up the coiled bimetallic element in a thermometer to a generator. As the room heats up it turns one way and as the room cools it turns the other. You would get a little bit of electricity from that.
Hope they figure out how to easily make graphene.
“could be harnessed” or “HAS been harnessed” ?
I COULD date Kate Upton, but HAVE I?
This can only work if the environment itself provides an unlimited (or at least sufficient) source of thermal energy.
Fortunately, as long as you are above absolute zero, it does.
So, the graphene converts its own thermal energy to electricity and the environment brings the graphene back to thermal equilibrium. The Laws of Thermodynamics remain satisfied. The device just sucks energy out of the nearly unlimited thermal energy source we call the environment.
Why didn’t I think of this.
The article makes no sense. For starters, diodes all have a “forward voltage” drop, a threshold below which they don’t conduct. This turns them into a power absorber at low voltages. The forward voltage of a diode is generally around a half a volt. Johnsonian noise in a material is measured in micro volts. Real diodes simply wouldn’t conduct the noise at all, they would simply absorb any power that is present.
Words like “symbiotic relationships” deal with living things, not circuits. Electrical circuits only can have physical characteristics.
Words like “We also found that the on-off, switch-like behavior of the diodes actually amplifies the power delivered, rather than reducing it, as previously thought,” said Thibado. “The rate of change in resistance provided by the diodes adds an extra factor to the power.” are simply nonsense.
Nice. Keep the Chinese students away from this research.